When creating a trifold brochure it is important to decide on several items. Consider purpose, audience and content.

Usually, a company or an organization decide to print trifold brochures to start marketing campaign, target specific event, group or promote specific product. Engaging customers online is complemented by professionally put together marketing material delivers stronger message and builds trust between a buyer and a seller. Trifold brochures traditionally became most commonly used and perhaps most effective method of print promotion.

Deciding what brochure will explain to audience and what basic information it will provide will determine approach to design. Always start a brochure with content. While not all of us are able to put together professionally written paragraphs of copy, planning effective can and must be done.
Engaging a copywriter is a good idea if developing content is challenging. In the end, try realistically break down content by panels thinking what will go on the front cover, inside spread, inner flap and reverse side. Putting too much information will lead to very text heavy brochure that no one will want to read through. Too little copy on the other hand, may not be enough to deliver message. Always strive for balanced approach, develop primary messaging, support it with strong and informational statements, use bullet points and clear call to action content. Trifold brochure does not have to be overly specific, it should engage client to make them want learn more.

Design of the brochure starts with analysis of the content by a designer and selecting appropriate design approach, photography, illustrations that may improve and strengthen the message. Design process will likely involve multiple reviews going through options and changes in the end delivering trifold front and back side ready for print.

High resolution print files can be sent to any printer in the world, and two primary methods of print must be considered. Traditionally, offset printing was only method of professional printing. Minimum orders of 250 or 500 were required costing at a minimum $200 $300 or more. Recently digital printing became popular and allows for small runs and fraction of the cost. Main disadvantage of digital printing is sharpness and fidelity of print itself. Line quality and sharpness of small elements may vary depending on the design. Still, many customers find this method sufficient and do not pay attention to minor details. We always mention this, but let our customers decide which method they want use.

Selecting paper also important step in developing good trifold as very thin paper may mean cheap and untrustworthy feel, while very heavy stock may be too thick for mailing. Paper finish also plays important role. Dull coat finish often used as solution that produces accurate colors as well as provides finished polished feel. Matte is often used for printing with few colors, full color print with glossy finish often appropriate for certain industries such as hospitality, where consumers come in touch with brochures. Business clients look for maximum professional presentation and often choose paper that feels serious, produces color well and doesn’t leave fingermarks.

If your organization is interested in designing effective trifold brochures, contact LightMix. We designed many, many brochures for clients in different industries.

We recommend that a first step is for organization to review examples of corporate identity guidelines, branding guides and style guides from other companies before deciding on how to approach their ID redesign. A great resource to see examples of how your corporate identity can be documented is located here: http://www.designerstalk.com/corpid

Thanks to the article http://www.graphicdesignblog.co.uk/corporate-identity-guidelines/ this resource and others referenced will help your organization to do needed research and planning before starting branding and identity redesign project.

The next step is to proceed with preparatory phase, generate list of goals, requirements and select service provider that can demonstrate expertise in the field, solid portfolio and understanding of marketing goals of your organization. Decide if your organization needs just a simple identity, logo or more extended corporate identity guidelines, style guide.

It is important to stress that corporate clients lack full understanding of all implications of branding, identity. Balanced approach to brand marketing takes into account all aspects of user interaction and experience with identity, brand, products.

Contact LightMix to receive a free consultationa nd a proposal for your brand remake

Website design checklist, logo design checklist, marketing checklist, search engine optimization checklist, application design checklist, usability checklist.. they are many of them out there. Visit this article you can get a load of checklists for whatever you want. Will they necessarily help you to have a better product in the end? Not always, not likely if your overall approach to a project is wrong. What we try to establish from the start of the design is to make sure that customer doesn’t lead the design process too much so that designers participation is limited to just technically following advice and direction of a customer without regard for professional opinion. It is often problematic to convince a client that spent considerable amount of time on self education that in fact this may not be best way to go about presenting marketing content, one way or another.

 All of the checklists that you find, and we often use some, should always be used for one purpose only -  planning and initial information. They should never be used as a guide, tool, reference. If they do and if a customer tries to stick to the irrelevant opinion of others the rest will be just that -  irrelevant design that will fail to address main requirements of the project.

Click here to talk to us and to receive a checklist that will make sense and to start a project that will deliver the result.

http://thefinancialbrand.com/2009/11/09/branson-launches-virgin-bank/

Rebranding an existing company’s branding is always a difficult assignment a it takes experience, understanding and knowledge of branding strategy, marketing and advertising to suggest effective method and best means of implementing rebranding. It is often confused with logo and identity redesign, but rebranding is a widest an most significant update of the company communication system and marketing approach compared to all other steps.

Rebranding of the company isoften executed by branding firms, which determine new business and marketing direction. Organizations with significant budgets can afford engaging top advertising agencies and corporate branding firms to establish a new vision, define new marketing goals, review input from man customers and create new brand.

Smaller size organizations attempt to execute rebranding of a firm o a limited budget and while saving a lot of money try to follow same principles as large companies do. This however is often left to the discretion of the inhouse marketing teams, often not experienced enough in redefining core branding characteristics.

So how a smaller size organization can accomplish difficult transition of from old to new with minimum amount of risk and greatest potential?

The answer is in finding narrow range of small marketing, advertising and niche design firms that possess spot-market expertise and at the same time have multidisciplinary inhouse expertise to foresee and lead client through process of rebranding while avoiding common missteps.

Are you interested in rebranding our firm o organization? Contact LightMix for custom proposal.

In tough economic times companies are starting to focus their advertising on messages that stress continuity, longevity and survival despite bad economic situation. Take a look at the latest ad from Bank of America:

Key messages used in the advertising that tries to refocus audience toward positive outcome include messages of “no matter what”, “still going” etc.

Great research on this subject was conducted by BusinessWeek.

Its a consistent effort by top brands to indicate survival of the fittest and at the same time to aggressively capture new customers from companies that do not do the same.

The same approach was in fact taken by many companies during the Great Depression when many organizations completely stopped advertising and brands started to loose ground. At the same time more aggressive companies like top auto makers, etc went after consumers and established solid trust that lasted long time. We may be witnessing the same trends 70 years later.

Should you advertise in a recession?

Absolutely yes! It is best not to stop but rather expand your marketing and advertising during a recession and try to think creatively how to open new markets, aggressively pursue clients that may loose loyalty to other brands and try to establish your firms foundation for years to come.

Read more samples and details at http://tinyurl.com/atcqk8

Indeed, rebranding and major changes to the marketing and communications strategy can be delivered with greater impact, lower cost and fewer overruns if organizations are efficiently using tools available at no cost to greatest potential. Primary benefit of the technology of social media is in ability to immediately engage audience and gather feedback. While in non-commercial fields, social media is a primary tol of communication, in business, this serves as a prerequisite to well-balanced marketing and communication strategy.

1. Hire only professional company to execute creative design services for your organization.
2. �Find industry-specific marketing firm for marketing only, do not go with design services from marketing firms.
3. Avoid low cost service providers. Creative design means iterative design approach. Low cost providers are not designed to offer such flexibility.
4. Creative portfolio is a must and it should show wealth of relevant design work.
5. Testimonials list is a must. Any creative design company will provide list of recommendations.
6. Proposal completeness is important. Consider how well company organizes their formal proposal when deciding on creative design services provider.
7. Speak with actual creative director. Accessibility of creative talent is a key.
8. Prepare enough material to be able to work form. Often, organizations do not have adequate resources prepared before beginning of the project.
9. Trust yourself, but don’t try to micro-manage creative design if you are not qualified�.

Marketing company and design team may push your project different directions. You must maintain an independent perspective from your client standpoint at all times. Creative design services is a subjective matter. Many times aesthetics can confuse clients. The reason why you may or may not like some design aspects are not as important as the fact whether or not it works.

Logo design for small business is important for following top 10 reasons:

1. Small businesses are often in disadvantage versus larger more developed companies. Good identity can level the field and help win projects.

2. Logo is one of the most important communication components of the marketing system. Having professionally designed branding and identity will allow to leave best impression on prospective customers, many of which will understand value of branding.

3. Small businesses need to establish or expand brand awareness on local or national market. Because of saturation of market with other brands, it is critical to have brand as memorable as possible and as often used as possible to establish or solidify logo and brand recognition. Remember that it takes many times (over 7) for your advertising to be remembered by people.Branding should be prominently used across all types of advertising.

4. To ensure effectiveness of ongoing marketing campaigns, branding and logo design must exist in a form that allows some room for change. To have that, initial design must be done with due effort allowing change sin usage, configuration depending on usage in different media. Consider that small size logo used in small web banners still must be easy to read as well as large sign logo over your entrance or on the street sign.

5. Competitive analysis of direct competition will most likely demonstrate that significant percentage of the other companies in your field already have logo design and branding systems developed to some degree. Not having that, your company automatically will appear behind.

6. Clear logo and branding identity will ensure that your own team stays efficient and can sell and execute your own services with best quality. All small businesses struggle with personnel issues, but for small companies it is more critical then larger ones. Even slight increase in efficiency or performance can have detrimental effects on the profits. Make your team be proud.

7. Vendor performance for small businesses can also be stimulated by demonstrating how well our organization is managing marketing aspects of your business. Good and clear branding and identity will reduce incorrect usage of your brand and more importantly limit mistakes to some degree when provided by other companies.

8. Many small businesses operate as networks of more then one organization. If your design company is able to provide good logo and branding design services to your organization, your own small business can generate income and expand business by referring your design company to others.

9. Local and especially remote customers may feel higher level of comfort by interacting with organization, which logo and branding is well designed. Many business decisions are done based on the level of comfort. Logo design for small business provides just that opportunity – make a lasting impression on your prospects.

10. Digital presence of your business often involves frequent usage and integration of your logo across different media from press releases, blogs, forums, postings, signature in email and so on. A professionally designed logo that can be used without sacrifice in all fields. Small business owners value time and well designed identity will save time in day to date operations and ensure best results.

Click here to have LightMix provide professional logo and branding identity estimate. Review our design portfolio

Cover design
Last 5 years online publications are one of primary methods of delivering frequent updated reports to users. Custom cover design for newsletters, reports, books and online publications is a good way to expand your branding, make your publication unique and memorable.

Regardless of how simple the inside of the report is, the cover in this case is what attracts the user.

Don’t judge the book by its cover, but use it to sell it.
Yes, this is absolutely true that judgment about content should not be done by the design of the cover. The truth however is also in the fact that marketing statistics are way better for products that are effective in communicating, attracting and stimulating users to perform action. So, from publishers perspective, newsletter cover or a report cover may in fact need to be vibrant, so the product stands out from the crowd.

Custom cover design
There are many options with covers. Many in fact go and do DIY covers. The drawback is that professional design of the cover will  help to create professional packaging of the product and that in its turn will increase sales. Leave DIY for the inside, don’t try to save few hundred dollars and let professionals design a cover for your book, report, publication or digital newsletter.
Below you will find a compilation of 100 cover designs produced by LightMix over the past year in the financial services industry. Specifically financial newsletter cover design, financial reports covers, corporate report covers, book covers and more.

 Click on the image below to view full size version

Cover design for books, reports, newsletters